Electrical connectors typically include housings that carry electrical contacts. The electrical contacts define mating ends that define a mating interface and opposed mounting ends that define a mounting interface, respectively, of the electrical connector. When signals are transmitted through the electrical contacts, electromagnetic fields generated in an individual electrical contact can induce interference into the signals carried by neighboring electrical contacts, for example by inducing crosstalk, thereby affecting the overall performance of the electrical connector.
For instance, referring to FIG. 1, an electrical assembly 10 can be configured as a typical industry standard CXP electrical assembly in accordance with SFF-8642 Specification, Rev. 2.7, Feb. 26, 2010, the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety. The illustrated electrical assembly 10 can include a substrate such as a printed circuit board 12, an electrical connector assembly 14 configured to be mounted to the printed circuit board 12, and a complementary electrical component such as a complementary electrical connector 16 that can be shielded, and can be a cable connector. The complementary electrical connector 16 is configured to be mated to the shielded electrical connector assembly 14, such that the shielded electrical connector assembly 14 places the complementary electrical connector 16 in electrical communication with the printed circuit board 12. Each of the printed circuit board 12, the shielded electrical connector assembly 14, and the complementary electrical connector 16 can be configured in accordance with the SFF-8642 Specification, Rev. 2.7, Feb. 26, 2010.
However in operation the electrical connector assembly 14 of the illustrated industry standard CXP electrical assembly can exhibit undesirable electrical characteristics, for instance high insertion losses at certain select resonance frequencies (e.g., Q resonances). The insertion losses can adversely affect the electrical performance of the electrical connector assembly 14, and thus of the electrical assembly 10, for instance rendering the electrical connector assembly 14 to be marginally operable at data transfer rates of approximately ten gigabits per second (10 Gb/s) and substantially non-functional at data transfer rates of approximately fourteen gigabits per second (14 Gb/s).